


At the sign of The Prancing Pony

by TaleWeaver



Series: No Dungeons Just Dragons [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU: Dungeons & Dragons, F/M, Jon moping, Slow Burn, though not exactly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 21:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20123869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWeaver/pseuds/TaleWeaver
Summary: One year after Sansa and Jon's agreement, the Snowblood Party are celebrating at an Inn. Arya eats a lot. Sansa gives a lecture. Jon broods. Grenn and Pyp get drunk.





	At the sign of The Prancing Pony

**Author's Note:**

> Written for jonsadungeonsanddrabbles Sugar and Spice Event. Day 2: Anniversaries/Firsts.
> 
> Here, we finally get to meet the other Party members. I've changed things a little from canon, so here's the roster.
> 
> THE SNOWBLOOD PARTY
> 
> Lord Jon Snow, son of Great House Targaryen (acknowledged bastard son of the King): Ranger (Beastmaster). Started Adventuring at fifteen and has eight years experience. Founded the Snowblood Party at seventeen. Intends to be a career Adventurer, but various members of his family have different ideas. Occasionally called upon to do Secret Business for the Royal Family which he refers to as private quests.
> 
> Grenn, smallfolk: Fighter. One of the original members of Snowblood. Career Adventurer of twelve years experience – he’s only a year older than Jon, but got started early. Notorious for his inedible cooking.
> 
> Pypar, smallfolk: Fighter/Bard. One of the original members of Snowblood. Adventurer of eight years experience, saving up money to attend the Bardic Collegium (he refused Jon’s offers to loan him the money) and eventually found his own mummer’s troupe.
> 
> Lady Sansa Stark, daughter of Great House Stark of Winterfell: Gem Sorceress. Just finished her first year of Adventuring.
> 
> Lady Arya Stark, daughter of Noble House Stark of Moat Cailin (cadet House): Rogue (Assassin). In her first year of Adventuring. Sansa went home for a visit, and her Uncle Benjen asked her to take Arya along with her Party so she wouldn’t be asked to attend Court in King’s Landing, which everyone agrees would be a bad idea. (I have Arya and Rickon as Benjen’s kids, not Ned’s, basically because Arya was the only possible choice for a Rogue character, but I didn’t want to have to deal with her and Sansa’s fraught history.)  
Former members:  
Samwell Tarly, son of Noble House Tarly: Cleric. One of the original members of Snowblood; having fulfilled his duty as a noble son he retired from Adventuring and is now studying in Oldtown. Newlywed to Gilly Craster.  
Gilly Tarly, (formerly Craster) FreeFolk: Druid. Completely untrained and unaware of her own Class until she met the members of Snowblood and joined them to get away from her abusive father. Managed to work out the basics through instinct and natural cleverness. Now married to Sam Tarly and studying in Oldtown.

At the Inn called The Prancing Pony, located in the village outside Torrhen’s Square, the members of the Snowblood Party had taken over one of the tables after a long but successful day. After finishing a Quest issued by the Northern Guild – one that two other parties had failed at – all five members had a heavy purse to their names, and had splurged on the finest drinks and the most expensive meal the inn had to offer. The Snowbloods also had another reason to celebrate – tomorrow marked one year since Sansa had joined them.

“What about you, Pyp?” Arya asked. “Do you have anything in mind, or will this purse all go to your savings for the Collegium?”

Pyp smirked. “I need to upgrade my instruments – my lute in particular. My magics all depend on them, as well as the coin I earn when you Nobles get dragged home to visit. And after the dunking my pack took when I fell in the river, if I tried to use my flute to charm the fleas from our beds, I’d end up Summoning ticks!”

Grenn belched appreciatively. “Good ale, this. I’m going to get a new sword, I think. One that’s been forged just for me.”

Sansa returned with a platter in one hand, piled high with smoking meat, and a goblet of Arbor Red in the other. “I need to spend at least one full day re-tuning my gems. I’d really like a nice large piece of amber, but I need it to be water-clear, and that’s so hard to find bigger than a fingernail.” She placed the platter in the centre of the table, and gracefully slid back into her chair. 

Jon nodded his thanks to the redhead, and sipped his mead, smiling in appreciation. Though not of the excellent mead.

Arya frowned, “Wait, re-tuning? You didn’t melt crystal on this Quest. You were awake the whole way here.”

“Wait, what?” Grenn asked. “Crystals don’t melt! They’re hard!”

Sansa grinned. “Alright, Gem Sorcery Lesson five. All my Gems have to be attuned to my magic, so I can focus my spells through them. After a lot of use, the tuning gets... fuzzy around the edges, and I have to re-tune them in order for my spells to work at their strongest. Like Pyp has to re-tune the strings of his lute. Now, the strength of the spells I cast depends on how much magic I pour into a Gem. However, just _how much_ magic I can pour into a Gem to power a spell depends on the quality and clarity of my Gems. A Gem filled with more magic than it can hold loses all it’s tuning at once. Among Gem Sorcerers, this is known as ‘melting crystal’, because ‘melting stone’ is a spell that no one’s been able to do since Bran the Builder.” Sansa leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table, and continued, “Melting crystal comes in two stages, the burn and the crash. The burn puts me in a magical version of battle rush, and after a certain amount of time comes the crash, anywhere from one hour to eight, where I fall asleep and can’t be woken up. Anyway, since different spells work best with different kinds of Gems, the side-effects of melting crystal vary depending on what gem I melt. I usually feel an urge to perform some specific act, but I’m very good at controlling the urges.”

Jon was glad he’d had the forethought to sit next to the pillar, which threw shadows on his face. It meant that no one noticed that his eyes were fastened to Sansa’s cleavage. All the Party had taken advantage of the Inn’s bathhouse, and Sansa had changed from the shirt, tunic, trews and robe she wore on the road into a simple but flattering dress in a sapphire colour that made her blue eyes shine. She hadn’t bothered to tie the lacing at the neckline, and Sansa leaning forward during her enthusiastic lecture meant that Jon was at just the right angle to see a generous amount of cleavage. He’d seen more from Ladies of the court during feasts and parties... but this was _Sansa’s_ cleavage.

Jon’s attraction to Lady Sansa of House Stark had been almost immediate – several hours after they’d met, Jon had fallen into bed and dreamed that instead of sealing their agreement with a kiss on her hand, he’d bent Sansa over the balcony railing, lifted her dove-gray skirts, and mounted her like a direwolf in rut. He hadn’t had such a strong response to a woman since Ygritte, the Free Folk Barbarian who had swiftly and forthrightly relieved him of his sexual innocence, when he'd met her beyond the Wall during his first Quest.

Over the past year, as his and Sansa’s companionship solidified and their friendship grew, Jon’s infatuation had turned to love, but he had no idea what to do about it. His brief but intense relationship with Ygritte, and the flirtations of the women at Court, had in no way prepared him for this. Sansa was a daughter of a Great House - if he made advances to her and she was insulted by them, it would not only affect the workings of the Party but cause trouble between their families. But if she welcomed his advances, what then? Scions of nobility didn’t have love affairs, they married. Sansa had signed on with the Snowbloods partly to avoid being married to that Baratheon brat – which didn’t mean that she’d be opposed to marrying _Jon_, but...

Jon hid a sigh in his mead. Thinking about the implications of courting Sansa made his head spin, and with Sam gone Jon had no one to give him any sort of advice; Grenn and Pyp were both smallfolk, and had no idea of the intricacy of the mating dances of the noble houses.

In the meantime, Jon found himself brooding a lot. And if he sought privacy on a far more frequent basis - well, what a man thought about alone in the woods with his trousers open or in his bedroll in the middle of the night was no one else’s business.


End file.
